Archive for the ‘Homeschooling’ Category

How is our Schedule Doing After the Holidays?


2014
01.14

Our established schedule from the fall worked pretty well.  We have had some nice breaks with 2 weeks visiting family for Thanksgiving and the 2 weeks of a stay-cation with dad for Christmas.   

We had a good time with family for Thanksgiving enjoying the country with Grandpa and Dad’s family, and visiting all our family in the city getting early Christmas gifts, late birthday gifts for Big Brother and lots of love.  Then for Christmas we dedicated our time to a family movie each day (we rotate who gets to choose) and regular boardgames including a 4 hour complete game of Risk.  I was so impressed that Big Brother completed the game and enjoyed every minute.  We also helped Dad make Tamales twice and enjoyed Christmas dinner with longtime friends we call our local family.

As for school, “Math on the Level” is still a wonderful fit for us, and we are progressing well with “Primary Language Lessons”, “Story of the World 3” and “BFSU”.  Although things were considerably slowed down with all the vacationing, I feel that we learned so much about each other and the world around us while not doing formal school.  Big Brother also did a lot of LEGO building as usual.  I use to resist this but it is a true passion and he learns so much while building, following directions, as well as creating his own things.  He wants to be a LEGO engineer when he grows up.

DrawBot


2013
10.20


Click Here to view DrawBot video

We’ve been having a good time with school this fall. Among the successes is Big Brothers Future Fab Jr. class, a Compass Homeschool Enrichment Class. One of his favorite projects has been making the DrawBot. Click on the link bobe to see it in action.

Starting a New “School” Year


2013
09.10

Another new school year is upon us. We have kept a lot of things and are adding a lot too. It is a busy fall.

We officially started up again with more formal schooling last week and it went very well. We tend to unschool spring and summer but like more structure and activities to start the year.

Here is a look at our planned schedule in detail:

MONDAY
– Math instruction
– Math practice
– Practice reading to mom
– Mom reads to boys
– Practice Violin
– Science Activity
– 4-H

TUESDAY
– Read to mom and Cisco in Spanish
– Math Practice
– Language Arts
– Violin Class
– Tae Kwon Do
– Read History
– Read Science
– Park Day
– Cisco’s Speech Therapy

WEDNESDAY
– Math Practice
– Read to Mom and Cisco
– Practice Violin
– History Activity
– Future Fab Jr. Class

THURSDAY
– Read to mom and Cisco in Spanish
– Math Instruction
– Practice Math
– Language Arts
– Practice Violin
– Tae Kwon Do
– Walk
– Cisco’s Physical Therapy
– Read History
– Read Science
– Co-op

FRIDAY
– Practice Math
– Read to mom and cisco
– Read
– Practice Violin
– Violin Group Class
– Co-op
– Nature Walk

Heading to TKD on the first Day of school

Heading to TKD on the first Day of "school"

Physical Fitness


2013
09.10

Tae kwon do was a hit this year.  We started it in the fall as Mom and son in an attempt to find the elusive sport that is his sport.  We found it for him but not for Mom.  It was too tough on Cisco to be without me during the evenings when he was generally grumpy anyway and the structure was a bit for me.  I have never done well with pushy coaches and giving 110% (what the heck does that mean?). I’ve also never done very well with authority so felt silly calling all the TKD coaches sir especially since they were all younger then me.  That said, dad ended up wanted to start up again.  They allowed him to start Back with the belt he ended as when he stopped at 12 years old.  The two of them have happily been going strong for almost a year now. 

THE ARTS


2013
09.10

In 2012-13 we continued with suzuki violin.  Big Brother stayed positive all year but I felt burnt out by the end of the year.  With that and our move we’ve taken a month off of lessons and practicing lightly.  We are also taking the opportunity to brush up on note reading.  Our teacher is amazing and always keeps class fun even if it is hard work.  I do find that the assignment load can get quite heavy.  Daily we are to practice our newest song, special listening (listening to and memorizing the name of a classical violin piece), our study list (twinkles and a growing list as we advance that is presently at about 3 songs), poem memorization, by ear tune (where he practices a song he learned by ear that isn’t suzuki), listen to our Cd, and practice our note card memorization.  I find the playing is doable daily but we often struggle getting the other items in.  Luckily Big Brother is maturing and does pretty well practicing on his own but mom struggles to find the time to watch and make sure it goes well.  I’m hping this break will give me new energy to work hard for my generally enthusiastic player.

We took on various crafts and art projects this year.  Big Brother designed and wrote countless cards for friends and family.  I helped him make a waldorf doll for his brother.  We also did art projects in History group such as sugar cube Roman Arches.

SCIENCE


2013
09.10

We started last school year rotating Science and History every other week with our History group.  Our group found it was too disjointed and didn’t do either subject justice.  We were using Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding (BFSU).  It worked for some of our families and didn’t work for others.  Our family really enjoyed BFSU and made great progress on our own after we dropped science from our co-op.  I liked that I had BFSU as a jumping off board and Big Brother enjoyed the topics and experiments we did for each topic.  BFSU is a curriculum that integrates all the sciences and each topic builds on the one before.  There are 4 main categories and you can mix and match them as long as you have completed the prerequisite for each topic.  It is designed for k-2 but does have a follow on and it is recommended by the author that all students begin at BFSU regardless of age/grade to get the needed foundations for future scientific studies.   You also have the freedom of going the pace you want.  We made it almost half way through, I blame all the house hunting and moving on the fact that we didn’t make it further as planned.  BFSU is a keeper and we look forward to continuing with it this coming year.

For nature study, we attended Forest school and 4-H.  Our forest school allowed the kids to explore the creek and woods independently with parents earshot away to keep eye and answer inquires.  Our 4- h group went once a month to a new natural space each time.  We explored Mason Neck (my favorite), Hidden Oaks, the Botanical Center, the Arboretum and more.  We plan to combine these 2 activities this coming year.  They were both successes but to open up schedules, we’ve decided to combine.  Most people ae members of both.

Big Brother Also has an engineering side and has become very interested and apt at LEGO building.  For the winter and spring we participated monthly in a homeschool LEGO Club that brought a new level of creativity to Big Brothers LEGO building.  He’d get so inspired by everyone else’s creations.  Both science and art.

HISTORY


2013
09.10

Here is what worked and didn’t work for History last year. More to follow soon on how the new school year is going.

We continued with our history group from last year and covered Medieval times.  The group decided we no longer wanted to follow Story of the World (SOTW) as a group but wanted to use the Usborne History Encyclopedia as the basis of our studies.  However,  Big Brother still wanted to listen to SOTW2 so he did at bedtime.  This year had less structure and it was difficult to engage the kids, they mostly just wanted to play although Big Brother did enjoy the reading and listening when it was just the two of us.  I think removing SOTW as the foundation was a contributor as well as us choosing to probably be too laid back for the kids to feel they needed to be structured enough to participate so as one strayed they all soon followed.  We tried a couple field trips with the group and also didn’t feel this worked very well for us.  Big Brother and I like to go through the museum slowly and read everything.  We quickly got left behind and then Big Brother soon gave up on focusing on the museum.  I think museum trips would be better for us alone.  For various reasons, history group just didn’t work well this year and all participants agreed so we are probably going to discontinue history group but continue with something different to get the kids together who have become very close.  Our family will probably continue with Story of the World on our own.  Even though I don’t always agree with the order or what the author chose to focus on, I find it to be a good starting point for us as my son just loves listening to Jim Weiss and the storybook like format.

Language Arts (LA)


2013
07.15

We did very little formally in this category by design and it went well.  Big Brother wrote letters and made cards throughout the year to practice writing and spelling.  At the end of the “school” year Big Brother started writing his poem for his poem memorization he’s required to do for violin class and these poem memorizations were also considered part of his LA.  Most of the year, I had Big Brother read a story to Cisco and me every morning then we got away from it.  For awhile he didn’t read much.  Then he started reading to himself for his own pleasure (he particularly loves reading the Bionicle books I resfused to read him).  At that point, his reading skills began to really take off.  I always want to have a daily reading time where I read a book but we always seem to have little time.  We read through half of “Wind in the Willow” and all of the first “Harry Potter” (we were both obsessed with reading this one and got it read in about 2 weeks in the Spring).  I also read on topics associated with our history and science lessons.  

Next year, I would like to do better with having him read to me each day and me read to him.  One of our new features in our house is a reading nook. So far, Big Brother considers it a great excuse to read. For a little more formal LA, we will be adding Primary Language Lessons.  A gentle approach to language arts.  It is like “First Language Lessons” (from the author of “The Well trained Mind”) light and is considered Charlotte Mason friendly.  Includes copy work, stories and poems with a dash of grammar.  

The Reading Nook

The Reading Nook

Math


2013
07.07

We love the Math On the Level (MOTL) curriculum we used this school year.  We had a lot of trouble the previous year with Singapore math.  Big Brother got tired of all the workbook pages and I got obsessed about finishing every page and every problem.  He was dreading his favorite subject.  Math on the Level is divided into categories (geometry, operations, money & decimals, fractions), not by grade, and covers all math through pre-algebra.  You cover it at your own pace and in the order you want as long as you cover the prerequisites needed for the topic. There is also concise built in review.  There is a “Math Adventures” book of activities for learning the concept.  Learning through everyday activities was encouraged and suggested.  We really enjoyed learning measures through standard and metric baking.  We went as fast or as slow as we needed.  It does require preparation by the parent and lots of one-on-one interaction, which my son really likes.  This mamma that would prefer to just hand him the work but found this well worth the effort and less energy then arguing to finish a workbook page.  We progressed well even though we basically stopped formal schooling when we started searching for a house in April.

“Mom, what’s this?”


2013
05.30

My kids and I were going through old pictures.  Cisco worked on eating all the old greeting cards and Big Brother had a great time looking at our old pictures from before he was born.  Then, as we were looking through separate boxes, Big Brother says, “What is this?” and holds up an old negative.  It is interesting to live in a world where my child thinks it is perfectly normal for your pictures to be digitally stored on cameras and computers and perplexed by the need and use of negatives to create photos.